A REVIEW of the Kirk's position on state-funded denominational schools was ordered yesterday at the assembly.

Moves by the Presbytery of Dumbarton, which had called on the Kirk to make representations to the Government and the Scottish Parliament over religious segregation in secondary schools, were rejected by the assembly.

Representing the presbytery, the Rev John Cairns said: ''We believe that the atmosphere that should pervade all schools that are state schools is the atmosphere that is identified as that of the Scotland today.''

He added: ''We don't believe that the state education system should support one section alone and we don't really believe this is an adequate education policy for our children.''

Mr Cairns said: ''This is not an attack on any denomination. It is a plea that our education system be made more contemporary.''

He also expressed concern at the policy adopted by the Roman Catholic Church in employing mainly Roman Catholic teachers. Scotland's biggest teaching union, the EIS, revealed earlier this week that it plans a legal challenge against the apparent ban on non-Catholics teaching in denominational schools.

Mr Cairns said schools which adopted such a policy were losing out on wasted talent. However, in light of the Kirk's education department's call for a review of the issue, he said he would not be pushing the case in stronger terms.

The Roman Catholic Church's representative at the conference, the Right Rev Dom Hugh Gilbert, the Abbot at Pluscarden, spoke in defence of separate education.

''Segregation is not a helpful word here,'' he said. ''No sensible person I am sure, however they may envisage Scotland's future, would want to envisage a segregated Scotland. Rather a Scotland that takes its distinctive place within the family of nations and so with our schools.''

He added: ''We wish to safeguard the Catholic ethos of our schools but this does not mean that our employment practice excludes all who are not Catholic.''

He claimed that it was no more true that a Catholic school was a cause of bigotry than a Kirk home for the elderly was a source of Christian intolerance.

Calling on the assembly to support a review of its position on denominational schools and public education - the first since 1972 - board convener Andrew Blake claimed that to agree with the Dumbarton move would stymie further discussion.

The department is now expected to report to next year's assembly on the issue in a bid to update the Kirk's stance.